Panasonic MW-20 is a digital photo frame, iPhone / iPod touch stereo, and money burner all in one
October 6, 2010 No Comment
If you’re the sort who fancies a digital picture frame and a stereo dock for your iPhone, Panasonic ‘s new MW-20 might just be the thing to converge and satiate those needs. The 9-inch frame can display pictures via SD card, 2GB internal memory, or an iPhone / iPod touch via the bundled dock — and if you’ve got the device connected, you can also play music video via the frame’s internal stereo speakers (there’s no indication of any audio out for using your own speaker system, however). Additionally, the MW-10 successor has a touted 15 different display patterns, including some calendar and clock functionality. Pictures taken with a Lumix camera? The MW-20 has a function that’ll group photos by style (i.e. all nighttime scenery). Look for it during your haze of Christmas shopping in late November for — and here’s the part that’s gonna sting — just one dollar shy of $250. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Scenes from the CEATEC show floor below. Gallery: Panasonic MW-20 hands-on Panasonic MW-20 is a digital photo frame, iPhone / iPod touch stereo, and money burner all in one originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 11:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …NYT Shocked People Would Read Nobel Economist Hayek, Ponders Strange Concepts Like ‘Rule of Law’
October 6, 2010 No Comment
Kate Zernike, the New York Times’s Tea Party reporter, can add another scalp to her collection. This one belongs to ‘obscure’ Nobel Prize-winning economist Freidrich Hayek and his wacky theories like “rule of law.” “Once-obscure texts by dead writers” such as Hayek, wrote Zernike, are full of “long-dormant ideas” and strange arguments like Hayek’s claim, as summarized by Zernike, that “government that intervened in the economy would inevitably intervene in every aspect of its citizens’ lives.” Who would believe that? Hayek, meanwhile, won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974 and is widely considered to be one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century. But Zernike just can’t get over his radical views, principly, that he advoctaes “a return to the principles of Austrian economics” and “the rule of law.” I know, real wingnut stuff. Zernike tries her best to depict the content of the books as whacky and extremist, citing, for example Bastiat’s arguments that taxation is legally sanctioned theft or his argument against taxing alcohol, but she strains to paint anti-tax and anti-entitlement arguments as being “out there,” even going so far as to write that “the rule of law” is “Hayek’s term for the unwritten code that prohibits the government from interfering with the pursuit of ‘personal ends and desires.’” In other words, preventing politicians from usurping citizens’ rights. This is apparently considered radical at the New York Times. Jonah Goldberg remarks : If I had said a day ago that your typical New York Times reporter doesn’t have the vaguest sense of what the rule of law means, I would have heard from all sorts of earnest liberal readers – and probably some conservative ones too – about how I was setting up a straw man. Being opposed to minimum wage and government handouts, however, is racist, according to some of Zernike’s past articles , and Zernike has called the Tea Party itself racist and has called Brooklyn native Jason Mattera racist for speaking in a Brooklyn accent and wrote an entire book about why she thinks the Tea Party is racist. In short, she has an impressive record , and she is probably not the most impartial person for the Times to have covering the Tea Party. Zernike has also advised Republican candidates to “Enlist [Tea Partiers], but Avoid Speeches About the Constitution,” presumably because the Constitution is even older than any of the books mentioned in her article. But its not just the Tea Party that takes advice from old dead people whose ideas apparenty carry less weight because they are dead. John Maynard Keynes, who died in 1946, 46 years before Hayek did, still influences politicians’ attempts to spur economic growth through government spending. In fact, Keynes’ ideas–and Hayek’s for that matter–are still being taught in university economic departments. Here’s a headline: “Long-ago texts still taught at university!” “Long-ago legal opinions still pored over in law school!” At the liberal One Nation rally on October 2, there were tables selling books like The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marxism & Terrorism (Leon Trotsky) and The Jewish Question (1971, Abram Leon), as documented in this Americans for Prosperity video . Or, as Dr. Tibor Machan wrote in The Daily Bell : Frederick Bastiat’s The Law, from 1850, and F. A Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom from 1944, are selling like hotcakes among Tea Party members. OMG! How awful. Next we will be told that some people are studying Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Hume, Smith, Locke, Marx and other authors of “long-ago” texts in order to learn about political economy, ethics, social philosophy and such. Zerike even found it interesting that Tea Party activists are studying these economic and philosophical works as if they were scholarly texts: Doug Bramley, a postal worker and Tea Party activist in Maine, picked up “The Road to Serfdom” after Mr. Beck mentioned it on air in June. (Next up for Mr. Bramley, another classic of libertarian thought: “I’ve got to read ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ ” he said.) He found Hayek “dense reading,” but he loved “The 5000 Year Leap.” “You don’t read it,” Mr. Bramley said, “you study it.” Across the country, many Tea Party groups are doing just that, often taking a chapter to discuss at each meeting. There you have it: The anti-intellectual Tea Party is studying some of history’s classical works. How radical of them.
Continue reading …Bright delivers hybrid van for U.S. Army testing, won’t be hitting a battlefield soon — or ever
October 6, 2010 No Comment
Usually when we cover military gadgets it’s things like super-strong robots or skateboard tanks . But, even the U.S. Army needs practical, sensible transportation (apparently), and heaven forbid it buys some standard car from a standard dealership. Instead in this case it went to Bright Automotive, who whipped up a custom version of its Idea plug-in hybrid van, a 10kWh battery pack offering 30 miles of purely electric driving before spinning the internal combustion engine under the hood. On top of that, the Idea can actually act as a generator, exporting 3.3kW of power continuously at either 110 or 220v. What can’t it do? Well, look cool on a battlefield for one, or intimidate our enemies, for another — nothing a roof-mounted ball turret and a coat of olive drab can’t solve. Continue reading Bright delivers hybrid van for U.S. Army testing, won’t be hitting a battlefield soon — or ever Bright delivers hybrid van for U.S. Army testing, won’t be hitting a battlefield soon — or ever originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Maddow Trots Out Disgruntled Delaware Reporter to Rip Christine O’Donnell
October 6, 2010 No CommentTake MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow live on location from Newark , Del. , the site of a hotly contested U.S. Senate race. Mix that with the local beat reporter of the state’s largest newspaper that openly admitted her role model is Helen Thomas . The result: Unfavorable coverage for the conservative Republican in said race. On the Oct. 6 broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,’ host Rachel Maddow wanted to give her viewers a taste of the local Delaware media, since U.S. Senate Republican nominee Christine O’Donnell had announced she would go with a more local media strategy in her upcoming contest with the state’s Democratic nominee, Chris Coons. Appearing on her show were Ron Williams, a political columnist and reporter Ginger Gibson, both of the Wilmington News-Journal. Williams has made his view clear on O’Donnell over the past few months with his columns. Even in his most recent column he cast aspersions on O’Donnell, but that’s what columnists do. But his colleague at the News-Journal, Gibson lamented her inability to have access to the O’Donnell campaign. “I’ve not encountered a campaign where it is as difficult as it has been at this point to talk to the candidate who had access to information from the campaign,” Gibson said. “In terms of covering it over the primary and into the general election, I’ve been to a lot of candidate forums and I listened to her speak in a lot of places in order to be able to convey to our readers what she’s doing and what’s she’s saying on the campaign trail.” But this is a theme with Gibson. In a seemingly juvenile March 2008 open letter for her college paper , Louisiana State University ’s The Daily Reveille, Gibson blasted Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal for not being willing to answer a handful of agenda driven questions including ones about gay hiring practices at bars in Louisiana. “[H]ow can the office – headed by a governor who triumphed the state coming together to reform ethics laws – refuse to acknowledge one of the 10 largest daily newspapers in the state because someone there disagrees?” Gibson wrote on March 10, 2008. “Maybe none of the above is true, and she just refuses to acknowledge us. If that’s the case, maybe you should save the state her $85,000-a-year salary or find someone to be a ‘press secretary’ that is willing to work with the press – all of it. The repeated refusal by your press office to acknowledge the student newspaper seems indicative of a prevailing mentality, one that puts college newspapers – and to a larger extent, college students – at the bottom of your priority list.” Observers have noted Gibson’s repeated run-ins with the O’Donnell campaign and her willingness to criticize the Republican nominee time and time again. She has been labeled as a “liberal hit piece writer” and has been advised to find a hobby to distract her from her obsession over the Tea Party. Still, Gibson complained to Maddow that O’Donnell has been too busy to talk to her. “They’ve made several arguments recently that she’s been very busy and unable to hold interviews,” Gibson said. “In the pastimes she was busy, unhappy with coverage was another argument they made. And sometimes, it’s just been that no answer at all.” With Gibson’s track record, it’s no wonder.
Continue reading …During a recent Connecticut Senate debate, Republican candidate Linda McMahon asked her Democratic opponent, state attorney general Richard Blumenthal, how one creates a job. His answer: Umm….thoughts?
Continue reading …
Watch One Tree Hill S8E4: We All Fall Down The new installment of our favorite half brothers of One Tree Hill, which is entitled “We All Fall Down” is the teen drama hit TV show’s 4th episode of the 8th season was aired 10/05/2010 Tuesday at 8:00 PM on CW. The financial conflicts at the Clothes Over Bros. is what keeping Brooke busy dealing with trying to resolve it. Meanwhile, while Chase and Alex spends their afternoon together, Julian is working on a new film project. Haley and Nathan have now come to a conclusion about what Nathan’s career will be. Watch One Tree Hill 8×4(0804) Free Online Streaming Full Episodes Replay of the Latest Season and Video Clip Download Link:
Continue reading …
iLuv has a long history of cranking out too many iDevice speaker docks to count, so we can’t say we’re shocked to see ‘em pushing out an option that’s suitable for the iPad . It’s tough to make one of these actually look respectable when it’s hoisting a 9.7-inch tablet in place of a pocket-friendly PMP, but the iMM747 actually looks fairly decent. There’s a triple driver speaker network, a radiator subwoofer, an auxiliary line input (3.5mm) and a 30-pin Dock Connector that’ll also play nice with your iPhone and / or iPod. If you’re in the market, it’ll be splashing down in the next few days for $149.99. Continue reading iLuv’s iMM747 iPad speaker dock keeps it classy, classic iLuv’s iMM747 iPad speaker dock keeps it classy, classic originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Chris Matthews Rips Liberal Journalist For Endorsing All Democrat Candidates
October 6, 2010 No Comment
An extraordinary thing happened on MSNBC Tuesday: Chris Matthews scolded a fellow liberal journalist for endorsing all of the Democrat candidates up for election in the Senate this November. While discussing the battle between Republican candidate Linda McMahon and Democrat candidate Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut, the “Hardball” host expressed serious concerns about the latter lying about his military service. After playing a tape from Monday’s debate of Blumenthal haplessly trying to explain his position, Matthews asked liberal guest David Corn, “How do you say you served in Vietnam unintentionally when they`ve got the quotes?” Quite surprisingly, Matthews aggressively took exception with Corn’s answer (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: You think it`s venomous now, wait`ll you catch this race. Here`s the McMahon campaign ad. It`s a devastating ad right before last night`s debate. We`re going to show you the ad, followed by Blumenthal addressing it in the debate last night. Let`s listen, see who won. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you lie about serving in a war? RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT), ATTORNEY GENERAL, SENATE CANDIDATE: We have learned something very important since the days that I served in Vietnam. — I served in Vietnam — UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dick Blumenthal did it again and again! (END VIDEO CLIP) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BLUMENTHAL: I`m proud of my military service. On a few occasions out of hundreds when I commented on it, I described it inaccurately, and I regret it. I take full responsibility for it. It was not intentional, but that is no excuse. And I want to say that I am sorry, particularly to our veterans and most especially to the veterans of Vietnam. (END VIDEO CLIP) MATTHEWS: Can you explain the fact that “I take full responsibility” for it but “It was not intentional”? How do you say you served in Vietnam unintentionally when they`ve got the quotes, just like they have on O`Donnell? CORN: You know, you`re — (CROSSTALK) DAVID CORN, “MOTHER JONES”: The interesting thing about this, Chris, is that even in some of the same speeches, he said it right sometimes and wrong sometimes. He contradicted himself really within five, ten minutes of one another. So it doesn`t seem like it was an outright deception, like we`ve seen in Congressman Kirk`s case and others — MATTHEWS: Why would he do it? Why would he say, I served in Vietnam? CORN: I think it`s inexplicable, and I think he`d be up 20 points in the polls if he hadn`t made these dumb mistakes. (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: So you`re saying it`s a mistake to say you served in Vietnam when — you say that`s a mistake, an unintentional, it`s an inaccuracy. It was like a slip of the tongue, is what he — CORN: Because at the same time in the same speeches, he described his service accurately. MATTHEWS: So you believe it was a slip of the tongue. CORN: If he`s trying to lie, he`s then a really bad and lousy liar, which might be a good thing to have in politics. MATTHEWS: Well, look – I think you speak with forked tongue on these issue. PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Look — MATTHEWS: I don`t know why you`re defending this guy. CORN: I`m not defending him! (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: Are you defending every single Democrat candidate for the Senate this year, every one of them? You defend every single Democrat. Is that your position? CORN: Every single Democrat? No, not necessarily. I`m not — MATTHEWS: Well, name one you don`t support. CORN: I`m not — MATTHEWS: Name one you don`t support! CORN: Well, I don`t — MATTHEWS: Name one you don`t support! CORN: Chris, I don`t endorse candidates! MATTHEWS: You just endorsed him! CORN: I tell you what I think about them. I didn`t endorse him. I told you what I thought — (CROSSTALK) CORN: You know, he talked about — (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: OK. Go ahead. (CROSSTALK) CORN: Do you endorse? MATTHEWS: No, but I see a problem with this guy`s statement. BUCHANAN: Well, look — MATTHEWS: I think it`s a problem more than anybody — (CROSSTALK) CORN: I agree with you! It is a problem! Readers are advised that this is not the first time Matthews has expressed his disgust with Blumenthal’s comments concerning his military service. Likely not coincidentally, Matthews’ closing remarks on Tuesday included further condemnation of the Democrat senatorial candidate’s war record discrepancies. That said, the hypocrisy on display was nonetheless disturbing. With little exception, Matthews is and has been a shill for Democrat candidates throughout his career. Never has this been more disgracefully apparent than in February 2008 when he claimed on the air that Barack Obama gave him a thrill up his leg. Complicating matters further is the indisputable fact that the entire network Matthews works for is completely in the tank for left-leaning candidates and isn’t at all ashamed to say so. As such, Matthews chastising a guest for what he and all of his fellow colleagues do on a regular basis is akin to Claude Rains being shocked to find gambling going on in Humphrey Bogart’s Casablanca casino. Taking this one delicious step further, Matthews certainly would have expected Corn and virtually every liberal “journalist” in America to have fully supported him if he had run for Senate in Pennsylvania. With that in mind, although it sure was fun seeing Matthews scold Corn – wouldn’t it be marvelous if every time a member of the press campaigned for a politician in front of the camera he or she was immediately admonished for it? – it would have been far more meaningful if he would have had the courage to point that big accusatory finger at himself for his own past journalistic indiscretions. We can dream, can’t we?
Continue reading …As Feingold Runs Afoul of NFL, AP Claims He Is ‘Slightly Trailing’ In Wis. US Senate Race
October 5, 2010 No Comment
The National Football League is whistling incumbent Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold’s campaign team for illegal use of film. The campaign has been playing a commercial which includes footage of former Minnesota wide receiver Randy Moss’s pretend-mooning of Green Bay Packer fans during a 2004 playoff game, and is apparently doing so without the express written consent of the league. During the course of his coverage of the situation, the Associated Press’s Dinesh Ramde demonstrates that he doesn’t really know the score of the game that is progress, namely the electoral contest for Feingold’s U.S. Senate seat. In that game, the scoreboard at Real Clear Politics has Feingold’s Republican opponent currently ahead by an average of nine points over four polls. The latest, from Rasmussen, has Johnson ahead by 12. To Ramde, these polls indicate that Feingold is “slightly trailing” Johnson. Here are several paragraphs from Dinesh’s deceptive dish : NFL flags Sen. Feingold’s ad for using Moss clip The NFL is flagging Sen. Russ Feingold’s latest ad, asking the Democratic incumbent to pull unauthorized footage of Randy Moss pretending to moon the Green Bay crowd in 2004. The TV ad, which the campaign said was released statewide Tuesday, opens with a series of clips of football players dancing in the end zone. A four-second clip shows Moss clearly wearing his Minnesota Vikings uniform. The others featured are not playing in NFL games. “We did not license the footage and have contacted the senator’s campaign about removing it,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told The Associated Press in an e-mail. Feingold spokesman John Kraus told the AP the campaign is editing the ad “to accommodate the NFL’s concerns.” Polls show Feingold slightly trailing his opponent, political newcomer Ron Johnson of Oshkosh, with four weeks left before the general election. Feingold says in the ad that football celebrations such as the ones shown are called “excessive celebration,” punishable by fines and 15-yard penalties. “It’s exactly the kind of behavior the corporate special interests and Ron Johnson are engaging in,” he says. He goes on to say his opponents are celebrating because they think they’ll take down a staunch enemy of Washington lobbyists. “Fortunately the game isn’t over yet,” he says. Based on the script described, the Feingold campaign deserves a further penalty for lame use of unauthorized content. Though of course it’s never over until the electoral clock runs out, I’d say that the situation is analogous to 3rd-and-25 at Team Feingold’s 10-yard line, down by six points with about two minutes left in the game – and Russ Feingold isn’t Brett Favre. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
Continue reading …
Looking to get an Android device on AT&T? Then you’re soon going to have a few more options to consider — the carrier has just announced three new Android-based phones from Motorola. Those include the touchscreen-only Bravo (not to be confused with the HTC Bravo ), and the QWERTY-equipped Flipout and Flipside, all of which will ship with Android 2.1 and the latest version of MOTOBLUR . Of the three, the Bravo is the highest-end, with it packing a 3.7-inch 854 x 480 display, an 800MHz TI OMAP 3610 processor, a 3-megapixel camera, and DLNA support for media streaming. The Flipout and Flipside, on the other hand, each pack a 720MHz TI OMPA 3410 processor, the same 3-megapixel camera, and a 2.8-inch QVGA and 3.1-inch HVGA screen, respectively. Somewhat notably, the Flipside also boasts a surprisingly large trackpad, which AT&T says will let you navigate with one hand while keeping your fingers off the screen (though it does, in fact, have a touchscreen). Look for the Flipout to be available first on October 17th for $79.99 on a two-year contract, while the Flipside and Bravo should be each available before the holiday season for $99.99 and $129.99, respectively. Gallery: Motorola Bravo, Flipout and Flipside for AT&T Continue reading AT&T debuts trio of Motorola Android phones: Bravo, Flipout and Flipside AT&T debuts trio of Motorola Android phones: Bravo, Flipout and Flipside originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …